"Not even so much, for there's a break-up. Old Mrs. Maxwell has suddenly discovered that her birthday will fall on next Friday, and she insists upon going back to Tilney Park to entertain the tenantry, and give a ball to the servants. Most of the people here accompany her, and Isabella and myself are obliged to go. Each of us expects to be her heir, and we have to keep out competitors at all hazards."
"'Why has she never thought of me?" said Maitland.
"She means to invite you, at all events; for I heard her consulting my mother how so formidable a personage should be approached,--whether she ought to address you in a despatch, or ask for a conference."
"If a choice be given me, I 'll stay where I am. The three days I promised you have grown nearer to three weeks, and I do not see the remotest chance of your getting rid of me."
"Will you promise me to stay till I tell you we want your rooms?"
"Ah, my dear fellow, you don't know--you could n't know--what very tempting words you are uttering. This is such a charming, charming spot, to compose that novel I am--not--writing--that I never mean to leave till I have finished it; but, seriously, speaking like an old friend, am I a bore here? am I occupying the place that is wanted for another? are they tired of me?"
Mark overwhelmed his friend with assurances, very honest in the main, that they were only too happy to possess him as their guest, and felt no common pride in the fact that he could find his life there endurable. "I will own now," says he, "that there was a considerable awe of you felt before you came; but you have lived down the fear, and become a positive favorite."
"But who could have given such a version of me as to inspire this?"
"I am afraid I was the culprit," said Mark. "I was rather boastful about knowing you at all, and I suppose I frightened them."
"My dear Lyle, what a narrow escape I had of being positively odious! and I now see with what consummate courtesy my caprices have been treated, when really I never so much as suspected they had been noticed."
There was a touch of sincerity in his accent as he spoke, that vouched for the honesty of his meaning; and Mark, as he looked at him, muttered to himself, "This is the man they call an egotist, and who is only intent on taking his turn out of all around him."